Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, reached another high in September, according to new data released by the United States Department of Agriculture. The new numbers mean that an estimated one in 6.5 people in America were on food stamps in America.

Federal welfare spending has grown by 32 percent over the past four years, swelled by President Obama's stimulus spending and a growing number of Americans whose recession-depleted incomes now qualify them for public assistance.

Forced "charity" that takes from the successful and merely redirects it to the unsuccessful provides the wrong kind of incentives. Our tax and welfare systems should reward thrift, entrepreneurship and industry, not indolence, timidity and profligacy.